Ntokozo Qwabe: an inconvenient hypocrisy

I barely followed the story about how Ntokozo Qwabe and his ridicule of a waitress he upset as part of what must have seemed like a clever bit of activism. A number of people have commented so I’m not going to add to the criticism.

Does the name Ntokozo Qwabe ring a bell? Let me refresh your memory: he is one of the leaders of the Rhodes Must Fall movement, which called for the statue of Cecil Rhodes to be removed from the facade of Oriel College, Oxford, on the grounds it was upsetting to ethnic minority students to be confronted by a monument to the 19th-century colonialist.

It then emerged Mr Qwabe’s own place at Oxford is as a Rhodes Scholar, funded by a bequest from that very same imperialist. He became, according to one report, ‘visibly angry’ when the academic Mary Beard said: ‘You can’t whitewash Rhodes out of history but go on using his cash.’